I’m not one to state what The Last Jedi is like (It’s probably better than The Force Awakens, but then again, even the Prequel Trilogy or, heck, even the Holiday Special’s probably better than The Force Awakens at this point), but I do think some statements need to be made.
First of all, regarding the whole “good and evil” bits you alluded to, the first Star Wars film might have had that (though even there, it’s a bit hazy since Obi-Wan did essentially brainwash a Stormtrooper, which does technically violate someone’s free will and thus is usually considered a villainous act), and possibly the second film, but the third film and the prequel trilogy definitely started entering gray areas the moment Obi Wan essentially claimed that truth is relative to a point of view (plus his, you know, lying to Luke about Vader’s dad and even telling him to commit patricide). Plus, in the Prequel Trilogy, there’s barely even any real difference between the Jedi and the Sith, with it even being implied that the Jedi dabble in nihilism and relativism with Obi-Wan’s infamous “Only a Sith Deals in Absolutes” retort. The novelization even implied that, for all their talk against having selfish elements, the Jedi Order’s reason for even “recruiting” Anakin to spy on the Chancellor, an explicitly borderline treasonous act, WERE inherently selfish ones in terms of ulterior motives, since Mace Windu basically made a comment that implied that sabotaging Anakin’s friendship with the chancellor was the exact reason why he was right for the job, wanting to keep Anakin under the firm grip of the Jedi Order.
As far as Lucas and the whole Rebels being Minutemen and the Empire being the Jacobins, funny you should mention that, because it turns out the Minutemen weren’t really high on Luca’s inspirations for the “heroes”, they were based on the Vietcong. The Empire, if anything, WAS based on America. And in the Prequel Trilogy, Palpatine actually took control of the Republic and turned it into an Empire via elections, and legal ones at that (if you know your history, you’d know the French Revolutionaries didn’t take power via elections, they did it by murdering the king). And speaking of which, when Lucas explained the Old Republic’s basis on history, he actually specifically stated that he based them among others on of all things Robespierre’s France (I believe his exact words were, when discussing his views on democracy and dictatorships, “Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon?”). On a similar note, in one of the books, Children of the Jedi, Leia flashes back to when the Rebels took the Imperial Palace and, well, let’s just say that the Rebels in the flashback come across as acting a LOT like the Jacobins, such as looting and shelling the Imperial Palace and slaughtering the servants regardless of race, sex, age, heck, even whether they even committed ANY crimes besides obviously having loyalty to the Empire (and what’s even WORSE is that the Imperial Palace used to be the Presidential Palace, meaning their actions meant they DESECRATED an image of the Old Republic). Don’t believe me? Read these:
http://thedailychrenk.com/2017/12/19/star-wars-always-leftie-fantasy/
https://otnesse.tumblr.com/post/162081709399/this-is-from-george-lucas-1973-notes-for-star
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sith-invites-bush-comparisons/2/
And as far as Rousseau, didn’t the Jedi basically advocate not owning anything, a whole anti-possessions clause of the Jedi Code that somehow extended to even holding any loyalty to your family due to it going down the path to the Dark Side, even advocating they should basically not even CARE if their loved one dies and not make any attempt to save them, have them die even a painful death (honestly, if you ask me, that comes across as even MORE cold and heinous. If you care for someone, you should at least make an effort to save their life from an exceedingly painful death.)? That even having sentimental feelings for family members is indicative to turning to the dark side? Yeah, last I checked, the Jedi, or at least the Prequel Trilogy Jedi, came across as being far closer to Rousseauians than the Sith/Empire, who actually said that they should be a government of LAWS instead of politicians (the Jacobins believed the exact opposite).
So far as the actual film, while I’m at times glad that it’s NOT an Empire Strikes Back clone and that they did develop Rey to have at least some degree of vulnerabilities to her character from what I’ve heard of it, I do think the story from what I heard was very poorly thought out (I’d even argue that Lucas had far more of a firm grasp on Star Wars than this did). Plus, I’m not fond of the dig against Capitalism/Free Markets made with the Canto Bight scene from what I heard, or the SJW elements which were arguably even WORSE than in The Last Jedi. And that’s not getting into how the First Order was made to be grossly incompetent a few times or the violation of the various laws of physics even by Star Wars standards (Poe’s infamous bombing run comes to mind), at least from what I heard.
Because large groups of people have the mentality of a herd and the attention span of a grape.